http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
LIKE A SCENE out of "Krippendorf's Tribe," in which an anthropology professor rigs up videos of a phony, undiscovered tribe replete with fake rituals and tribal makeup in order to hoodwink his colleagues, the media have recently been taken in by a zoologist on a vacation cruise in the Arctic Ocean who claimed global warming was melting the North Pole.

As ABC's "World News Tonight" breathlessly reported: "Part of the ice cap at the top of the world has melted. The New York Times reports that some scientists are calling it dramatic proof that global warming has started to alter our climate."

The Times itself had run a hysterical, front-page, above-the-fold report on the shocking development, claiming that "an ice-free patch of ocean about a mile wide has opened at the very top of the world, something that has presumably never before been seen by humans and is more evidence that global warming may be real and already affecting climate."

It wasn't until about 20 other newspapers had rebroadcast the news that global warming was melting Santa's home that the Times issued a rather comprehensive "correction" of the original article. It seems the article "misstated the normal conditions of the sea ice there" and that the "lack of ice at the pole is not necessarily related to global warming."

The "Oops! Our mistake" correction about such a spectacularly alarmist story led David Letterman to create a Top 10 list for the "Top 10 Signs The New York Times Is Slipping" including: "Instead of 'All the News That's Fit to Print,' slogan is 'Stuff We Heard From a Guy Who Says His Friend Heard About It,'" and "Notice on sports page: 'All scores are approximate.'"

In the paper's full-bore retraction article on Page F-3, it was now explained that reports of water at the North Pole "are not as surprising as suggested" in the original article. It seems there is always a little puddle of water at the North Pole in the summer. It shifts a bit, but it always emerges in the summer months. "This has probably been true for centuries," scientists said.

In 10 days we went from this hyperventilating headline, "Ages-Old Ice Cap at North Pole Is Now Liquid, Scientists Find," to this one: "Open Water at Pole Is Not Surprising, Experts Say." The Times completely disavowed the whole point of its original Page 1, banner-headline article as having "referred incompletely" to the nexus between the moving puddle and "global warming."

It's so great when you get even that much of a retraction from a liberal. Usually it's impossible to have the satisfaction of winning an argument with liberals because they are genetically programmed to pout and chant slogans rather than to engage in logical argument. When they don't have a retort, they just walk off miffed. Since they simply vanish, you can never pin them down to a solid concession. They're like teen-age girls in a snit: Boys fight, girls evaporate.

"Global warming" has been like this for years. No matter what the weather does, it is invariably described as further evidence proving the authenticity of "global warming." Climatologist Jane Fonda explained on her husband's cable station a few years ago that the "invisible threat" of global warming includes the threat of an increased incidence of blizzards.

So if the Earth gets colder and we have more blizzards (as happens every few years), that's evidence of global warming. But if it gets warmer, that's also evidence of global warming. (Hence, the name: "global warming"). And the whole magilla is "invisible."

Global warming enthusiasts use "the weather" the way the Soviet dictators did (and as do bureaucrats in a closely related field, the airlines). Irrespective of what the weather conditions are, "the weather" supports their point that 50 years of bad harvests aren't the fault of central planning (and that we can't take off for another six hours). A scientific theory that is impervious to disproof isn't a theory, it's fascistic sophistry.

In fact, most scientists whose field is climatology and not, say, the mating habits of the zebra, do not believe we are in the midst of global warming. There are fewer than 1,000 climatologists in the entire world, and in a survey of more than 400 of them, only 10 percent said they were convinced that we are witnessing global warming. In a 1997 survey of American climatologists from 36 states, 9 out of 10 agreed with this statement: "Scientific evidence indicates variations in global temperature are likely to be naturally occurring and cyclical over very long periods of time."

Now if we could just get liberals to admit they've "referred incompletely" to the virtues of central planning, we'd really have made some
progress.

09/05/00: Bubba protects and serves09/01/00: AlGore's 'going out of business!' tax plan08/29/00: Bush's compassionate conservatism08/25/00: Space alien tells funny jokes in bathtub08/22/00: Dems view world only in black and white, not in color08/18/00: Another Damascus Road conversion08/15/00: The viagra cotillion08/11/00: The hand-wringing Hamlet from Hartford08/07/00: The Democratic party's white face08/04/00: Hillary's potty mouth08/01/00: The hole in the story07/28/00: Cheney's detractors can't get their story straight07/25/00: AlGore: Elmer Blandry07/21/00: The tyranny of non-objectivity07/18/00: The state's religion07/14/00: Reform it back07/11/00: Keating for veep07/07/00: Gore invented 'Clueless'07/04/00: The stupidity litmus test 06/30/00: O.J. was 'proved innocent' too06/27/00: The last guys 'proved innocent' 06/23/00: Serious Republican candidates don't get serious press 06/19/00: They weren't overzealous this time 06/16/00: Evolution of the strumpet06/13/00: Actual journalistic malpractice 06/09/00: I did not have sexual relations with that ... man! 06/06/00: IRS turns Bubba's screw05/30/00: Too corrupt to be an Arkansas lawyer 05/26/00: Choose liberalism 05/24/00: Violence against coherence 05/22/00: Developmentally disabled Republicans 05/16/00: For womb the bell tolls 05/12/00: Asylum from Georgetown 05/10/00: The truth is out there, even for the clueless 05/08/00: Barbie is a liberal Democrat 05/02/00: Moving the goalpost 04/28/00: The bastardization of justice 04/25/00: How Monica Lewinsky saved the constitution 04/24/00: It's sunny today, so we need gun control 04/19/00: No shadow of a doubt -- liberal women are worthless 04/14/00:
It takes a Communist dictator to raise a child 04/11/00: The verdict is in on Hillary 04/07/00: Vast Concoctions III 04/04/00: 'Horrifying' free speech in New York 03/31/00: Campaign finance reform brings out worst in senators 03/28/00: All the news that fits -- we print! 03/24/00: Net losses all around 03/20/00: To protect, serve --- and be spat on 03/16/00: Thank Heaven for the consigliere 03/13/00: Vast concoctions II 03/09/00: The bluebloods voted against you 03/07/00: The Tower of Babble 03/03/00: Vast concoction 03/02/00: Hillary's sartorial lies 02/28/00: You have to break a few eggs to make a joke 02/22/00: I've seen enough killing to support abortion02/18/00: A liberal lynching 02/15/00: McCain and the flag 02/11/00: The Shakedown Express02/08/00: To mock a mockingbird 02/05/00: Summing up Campaign 2000: 'Oh, puh-leeze!'02/01/00: A Confederacy of Dunces01/28/00: Dollar Bill's racist smear 01/24/00: How high is your freedom quotient? 01/21/00: Numismadness 01/18/00: How dare you attack my wife! 01/14/00: The Gore Buggernaut 01/10/00: The paradox of discrimination law